The Man of Silence.

Waipa Post, Volume VII, Issue 338, 7 August 1914, Page 2

The Man of Silence.

BY TOM GALLON,

(All Eights Keskiiyed.)

luthor of "My Lady of the Ruins,'' " Pate's Beggar Maid," etc.

CHAPTER XVllL—(Continued,) dp add to the difficulties, of a difficult situation,- the perplexed look |n Arthur Fayerman's face must aeedsjcall for. attention from Clarence. i'You're not looking yourself at all, my dear boy," he said. "You've eaten nothing, and you are looking positively ghastly.. What's the matyou?" iTWattftrg—nothing at all,""stammered the boy, with a glance > at JBabs. "I think it's the heat." all suffered a little from ihe heat to-day," said Clarence Westley.. "If I were you, my boy, l would go to bed early and have a good sleep." Babs contrived to get hold of Madeline in the hall after they had left the dining-room. "Madeline, darling, I must speak to you —at once !'■' she whispered. "Could you have a headache and go to your room?' Madeline gave her a quick look, and pressed her hand. Within a few minutes it was announced thaiMadeline had retired and would not be seen again; she had a headache, and only wanted Babs with her. Babs, standing white-faced in her sister's room, blurted out breathlessly what she had to tell. Not that it was very much at the most, q> that it was anything coherent at that. But she told of what she had seen in the woods, and of what fehe believed. "I don't understand it—l don't Know what it all means," she whispered, on her knees before Madeline. "But it's true—it's true! I saw him—and Arthur saw him—just as he was in London, poor and afraid and in rags. He's alive!" Madeline stood with her palms pressed to her temples, staring at the other girl. This was a hard matter to grasp. It-had been easy enough for her to say that she could not think of him dead, yet she had stood in actual fact beside his grave. And now to have this matter thrust before her—to be told that he had been seen alive and near the house—all this was something that shook her faith in ordinary things to the foundations. S'You say that you saw him in ihe woods to-day—just as you saw him in London -" she whispered. -"I am certain of it," answered "the girl. "I have tried hard to tell myself that it was impossible; now I know that it is true. He is alive." "He is alive!" echoed Madeline, staring straight in front of her like one in a vision. "He is alive—and I must.go and find him!" "You will let me come with you?" pleaded the girl. "■"I must go alone; if we are to meet in the flesh, we must meet alone," answered Madeline. "I must go and find him!" She put on a cloak, and contrived to slip out of the house unseen. In the dining-room she could hear a roar of laughter from Reuben, and a feeble echo of it from her father. It seemed to jar horribly on what was in her mind. She was going out to find someone lost —forlorn — without a name; and the man to whom she Vas pledged was laughing in there with the other man who had sold her to him. She fled away from the lighted house, across the grounds, making swiftly for the hut. Going like that, she literally stumbled into the arms of Danny Batson coming to meet Seized in that first moment of excitement by the girl's nervous hand, Danny struggled and strove to break away, realised who his captor was, and cried out in relief.

-"Comin' to see you, I was, lady i—comin' wiv good noos," cried Danny. '"E's there—the genieman I told you of; 'e's in the 'ut asleep. Come quick—come an' find •'im. See if wot I've told yer ain't frue!'i

Without a word she followed him as rapidly as she could, and as they went along Danny talked only of the man in the hut and of the wonder she was to see. "Like a baby 'e is, lady; carn't remember nuffink that ever 'appened to 'im afore 'e found 'isself alonger me —not even knowin' wot 'is name was. You'll 'ardly know 'im w'en you see 'im, lady, an' HI lay a wager 'e won't know you. ,T

They came to the hut, and Madeline, thrusting the little man aside, went in quickly. The candle on the table'was guttering down to its end, and a bright patch of moonlight fell across the bed in the corner. But the bed was empty!

Danny Batson cried out in dismay at this second spoiling of his plans, then turned quickly towards the door of the hut. '"E carn't 'ave gorn far, lady," he quavered, '"an' on a night like this we'd see 'im a mile off. 'E'll 'ave gorn to the woods; I 'know w'ere ter find 'im."

Together they ran towards the woods where Danny Batson had found the wanderer asleep that afternoon. They came to a little clearing, where there was a space among the trees on to which the

moonlight fel! full and clear; and there, Danny paused in awe and pointed.

Standing in the middle of the clearing, bare-headed, with his lace ■ aised to the stars, was Vincent Avondale. He seemed to be communing with the silent night and the star-spangled heavens, and himself. He saw nothing ofi those who watched him, and suddenly he raised his hands above his head and spoke the one name tliu; he had remembered' in that life out of which he had come: "Madeline!"

She signed to Danny Batson to stand aside; she made her way swiftly through the trees until she stood opposite the man who had hands raised towards the skies; and then she cried out his name: "Vincent!"

He drppped his hands to his sides and stared at her for a moment; then, with a great cry that echoed through the silent woods, he ran towards her and fell upon his knees, and took her hands and put them to his lips. "Madeline, my lost love!" he cried. "I know —and I remember!"

Love had performed the miracle —Love had done what all else had been powerless to do.

CHAPTER XIX

For a time Vincent Avondale knelt there, holding, the girl's hand, and sobbing out halting phrases expressive of his love and his gratitude and his joy at this miracle that had happened. He was dazzled and bewildered by it all —by the sudden flood of light that had swept in upon his darkened brain, and shown him who he was and where he stood. He was sure only of one thing at the moment; that he held the hands of the woman he loved —a safe anchorage to which to cling. Danny Batson, with a delicacy that could scarcely have been expected from him, and perhaps with something of a feeling of awe at this strange thing, crept away through the trees, and went back to the hut. They would surely find him there; their gratitude would do everything else. So the lovers stood at last, clasping each other there in the moonlight arid in the dead stillness of the night. For a time no mere words seemed sufficient. They could only gaze into each other's eyes, content with the knowledge that all the bitter past was ended. There was no thought in their minds that this was but the beginning; that the man had yet to travel back from that grave in which he had been laid, and so come into his own kingdom. They did not realise then that that was practically an impossibility. They found a fallen tree and sat upon it hand in hand, and began to talk at last of this strange wonder that had come upon them. Madeline, of course, could not yet understand what had happened in that darkened time during which Vincent had been hidden away from her, as indeed he had been from himself.

"Dearest, you left me that night, and went away," she said. "What happened in between?"

"It has all been a blank. I have remembered nothing until this moment, when your dear voice called me back out of the darkness. Since the night when I walked in the grounds with Reuben " He checked himself, and looked at her quickly; he felt that he could not go on. The whole scene had suddenly appeared again before him. Once more he stood' and faced his brother before that ther struck him down; and he fell backwards, and felt the-dark waters closing over his head. He could not tell her.

"You left me, and went to walk with Reuben in the grounds," she said, holding his hand, and striving to look into his eyes. "What had happened before Reuben came back alone?"

He was silent. Suddenly he dropped his face in his hands, and sat there, saying nothing. He felt her hands stealing gently over his hair in a mute caress; after a moment or two he looked up at her, and answered slowly :

"I can't tell you. I can T t tell anyone."

"My dearest, you must!" she urged. "Think what it means to me. Pity me, and tell me all that has happened. To-night even, with you close beside me, and with your hand in mine, I scarcely know whether I'm awake or whether I dream. I have stood beside your grave; I have heard the solemn words spoken over it; and here I find you talking to me—you, whom I never thought to see or hear again You must tell me what happened. How else can we fight our way out of this tangle?" "It was for love of you he did it," said Vincent at last, slowly. "He had loved you, and he knew that night that I was to marry you. I had 'no suspicion of it, because we had walked through the grounds chatting pleasantly together. It was when he struck me first, and I turned upon him, that I realised, from what he said, the hatred that was in his heart for me. It was a matter of impulse. It was ail over in a moment; I hadn't time to struggle.'-

It was Madeline's turn to hide her face —against his shoulder. She clung to him, sobbing and shuddering, and realising the scene on the landing-stage at the edge of the river. When she was more composed, she begged to know what happened after that. "How were you saved How did you get out of the river?'' she asked. He shook his" head. "I've no notion at all," he answered. "The next thing I remember is finding myself in the hut by the river, with two labouring men looking after me. They must have pulled me out of the river, I suppose. After that I remember a long tramp with the two men on dusty roads in the sunshine; and then we came to Lo: don. I was poor and" in rags, as you see me now." "Where did you get those clothes?" she asked him.

Again he shook his head- "I don't know; I simply found myself dressed in them when I recovered. I don't know to whom they can have belonged; I don't understand anything about it."

She started to her feet with_ a cry, and stood staring at him wildly. "Vincent!" she exclaimed, "What man was it that was found dead, dressed in your clothes, and is'buried under your name?" He rose slowly to his feet, staring at her in bewilderment. "Buried under my name?" he *ejaculated. "I don't understand."

"After that night when you walked with Reuben in the grounds, and he returned alone, the mystery of your disappearance was a matter of comment for some days," she explained, carefully. "All the time that you must have been lying in the hut a hunt was going on — led by Reuben himself—to find you." ' "Led by Reuben himself!" he exclaimed bitterly.

"At last a body was found down the river—the body of a man in evening dress. That body was identified ">

"By whom?" he broke in quickly. "Again by Reuben," she answered. "In the pockets of the clothes.were certain papers that belonged to you —and two of my letters to you. He brought me the letters —stained with the water, and scarcely to be deciphered- That convinced me, as nothing else could have done; the poor dead thing was buried as Vincent Avondale. The grave is over there in the churchyard." " "Buried as Vincent Avondale!" he exclaimed wildly. "Heaven help me! I am a thing of no name!" "But think—think!" she cried, going to him, and clinging to him. 'You are alive here —standing before me—speaking to me. Who is it that was found in the river in your clothes, and identified by Reuben as you? Who can it be?

His mind had been darkened so long that it was dfficult for him at first to get it to work on this new and strange problem. To think of himself as lying dead was less a matter of perplexity than to think of himself now alive, and in strange clothes, while another man —dead — had had his identity forced upon him, and had been buried under his name. The thought of that brought him back to the remembrance of the clothes he wore; he stood looking down at them wonderingly. "There was a woman last night," he said at last, as if to himself, "who seized me in the grounds of your house, and cried out that I wore the dress of a man who was lost. I remember now," he exclaimed, excitedly. "She locked me up in the old summer-house in the grounds —and fed me, and looked after me; it was ortly when I began to be afraid that I escaped from the place, and came out to the woods." "What was she like—this woman?" Madeline asked, quickly. "A woman dressed in black, with a face that had seen sorrow—a face that had once been pretty. She seemed to belong to your house, because she got me food and wine from there."

"Lydia Murrelll" cried Madeline. "The woman who met Reuben on the river bank late at night, and demanded to know where her husband was."

"What did she say about him?" asked Vincent, quickly. "She said that Reuben had robbed and ruined him, and that he—her husband —had come down to Wood End Ferry to see Reuben, in the hope to get money from him. She said that he was poor and shabby—amost ragged—just as you it are

"Just as I am!" he echoed, looking down at himself and shuddering. " And that he had threatened to kill himself if Reuben would not help him." "Great Heavens!" he cried. "I see it all now. He did kill himself, and I stand here to-night in the dress of a dead man. That is, the man who lies in the grave that was meant for me; that is, the man for whom this woman is looking. .Yet how was the change effected, and why?" (To be Continued. - )—M.S. 20.